As a socially and environmentally conscientious eater, I’ve read about food deserts in poor urban areas and how the cycle of obesity is fueled by a lack of affordable, healthy options. I’ve read studies that compared the products offered at Krogers in affluent areas to those in low-income areas. Well today I experienced the phenomenon first hand.
I moved out of my apartment in the heart of Georgetown today, and put my stuff in storage for the summer in my cousin’s basement in northeast DC. As a thank you for letting me keep my boxes of crap here, I decided to make her and her roommates dinner tonight. So I walked over to the Safeway a few blocks away to get a chicken to roast and some veggies to go with it. What I found seemed almost like a cruel, racially insensitive joke.
I’m used to shopping at Safeway…the Safeway in Georgetown. In lilly white, rich Georgetown, organic, artisan, and local are not unusual words to find. Specialty products abound and the produce section, while not as good as the Whole Foods down the street, is pretty standard and fresh. They don’t have grass-fed beef (I’ve asked) but they do have free-range organic chickens.
Now fast forward to my trip to Safeway off of H Street NE. The area is far poorer, predominantly black, and the only sign I saw (over and over and over) in the store was “Low Price!” or some variation thereof. The contrast was striking. My first stop was to get a chicken. They had Perdue chickens. And Perdue chickens. And Perdue chicken wings, thighs, legs, gibblets, etc. There was one brand of “natural” chicken that I did purchase, but it wasn’t organic, and it wasn’t free range. I’m not actually convinced that it’s any different than the Perdues. And there were only two of them in the entire store. Apart from poultry, the difference in meat products also surprised me. There were stacks and stacks of ribs—both pork and beef—as well as pork back fat, pigs feet, and an assortment of smoked hams, meats, and turkey parts. No lamb or veal, and comparatively little steak cuts of beef.
On to the produce section, I was beyond disappointed. The organic section was tiny (consisting mainly of boxed spinach and lettuce) and the majority of the produce was dried out, browned, and clearly past its peak. Even simple items like cabbage were brown and limp. Spinach was yellowing and even asparagus, which is in peak season right now, was dried out and sad. The packaged mushrooms clearly needed to be taken off the shelves. I managed to find one box of spinach that looked reasonably fresh, and a box of button mushrooms that seemed fine. But my red bliss potatoes were considered a specialty item compared to the table stacked high with bags of brown russets (monoculture anyone?). Corn was on special for eight ears for 2 bucks, but it looked like it was a week past its shelf life. The most abundant and freshest produce were collard and mustard greens, and a giant stack of watermelons. It almost made me blush—as if someone were trying to stock the Safeway with stereotypical “black” foods to see how I’d react.
Other observations: there were more generic, value brands than I’d ever seen outside a dollar store—brands that were definitely not carried in Georgetown. The store was still large, clean, and well lit, though clearly not as new as the recently remodeled Georgetown branch.
Overall, it was clear that affordability was what their customers wanted. Signage constantly reinforced the value message. Nutrition was not a common label keyword. But what bothered me the most was all that wilting, aging, uneaten produce. The Safeway did carry a range of produce, but no one was buying it. It wasn’t unreasonably priced, but it also wasn’t going into anyone’s shopping carts. So I began to think about the cycle of poor nutrition, poverty, and food deserts. Which came first? Was Safeway simply responding to customer feedback? Were patrons voting with their wallets against the healthy options? Or were they simply outside the budget, even at reasonable prices? Were people skipping the produce because it was poor quality, or was it poor quality because no one wanted to buy it? Where does the customer’s responsibility end and the store’s begin?
It also got me thinking about strategies help increase sales of healthier foods. Demonstrations in store with samples would probably be a big draw and could help show parents how to cook simple, quick, healthy dinners. Weekend cooking classes for teens could be held in one of the empty storefronts in the shopping center. Or better yet, an outpost of the farmers market in the plaza outside the Safeway on Saturdays. But when push comes to shove, will promoting healthy foods work if they’re still more expensive than cheaper processed options? I honestly don’t know. And these types of initiatives must be community led to be successful.
One thing is certain, though: I’m very lucky. I’ve never had to worry about affording food. I let myself splurge on fancy cheese without a tinge of guilt. For much of the population (especially these days), fancy cheese is a fanciful fantasy.
